


if none of this goes anywhere

by templeofshame



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2011 Era (Phandom), M/M, Mentions of Alcohol Consumption, Songfic, an attempt at 2011 weird!Phil, first person hypothetical, post-Edinburgh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 20:59:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16415855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templeofshame/pseuds/templeofshame
Summary: Let them call us blue shirt and black shirt; next time, I’ll wear a black shirt too and they’ll have to call us Dan and Phil.It could take us anywhere.(After streaming at Edinburgh Fringe, Phil imagines their future.)written for phandomficfests bingo: bbc, tatinof





	if none of this goes anywhere

**Author's Note:**

> @waveydnp is everything; thanks to @chiridotalaevis too!
> 
> This is songfic of [Tour Song by Amory Sivertson](https://amorymusic.bandcamp.com/track/tour-song-2) because somehow it can get more esoteric.

Let them call us blue shirt and black shirt; next time, I’ll wear a black shirt too and they’ll have to call us Dan and Phil.

It could take us anywhere.

We could move to London to do a Blindfolded Face Drawing Radio Request Show. We could draw on different faces, first our own, then Nick Grimshaw and Scott Mills, and pretty soon we’re drawing on the faces of Thom Yorke and Matt Bellamy. I could barely hold the marker still, but you’d be able to fake it until they were out of the room. They might still be able to hear your shriek though, like a very happy wounded pterodactyl. 

We’d probably have to translate our face drawings into interpretive whale sounds, for the radio audience. Or we’ll beam it into their heads, and add smells as a bonus for the people watching online. I could sneak one of Martyn’s less weird songs — or at least Cornelia’s — onto our show, while you’re drawing on Jennifer Lawrence. We’d go to their gigs in disguise so we don’t get mobbed by our adoring fans. Then, until we remember why we don’t like clubs, we could sneak into a dark corner and pretend to be just two guys at an unfortunately straight club. Two guys not growing bigger and bigger public eyes, not trying to blend in as just another cherimon-like house of bros. Together, in ways that are always there, but usually stay hidden when we're outside our flat.

Soon, the Tate will be making artificial faces so that they can exhibit our masterpieces. I’ll wear a beret to the opening, and you’ll say you hate it but afterwards, you won’t let me throw it away. There’ll be wine and cheese and it’s the one time I don’t linger by the food. Next time, we’ll request a non-cheese option (and then I won’t be tempted to eat any of the faces). But for now I’ll get a little tipsy, good wine and an empty stomach, and I won’t want to talk to suit people about how brilliant we are at art. I want to talk to your dimple. Maybe you’ll be embarrassed, maybe it’s annoying, but hey, he’s still out, so I’ll pull you off to the side. They’ll all have plenty to distract them. I’ll get my dimple chat. 

Wirrow will be jealous of our face exhibit, but we’ll go to his openings too, at posh galleries that wish we wouldn’t. And he’ll figure it out, sooner or later, that we’re mostly there in case Joseph Gordon-Levitt shows up. Or maybe we’d get him on our face-drawing show anyway. But we’d have game nights with Bryony and Wirrow all the time in London, and Bryony can keep us grounded as we rise in the art world and Youtube simultaneously. Because we’ll still be doing Youtube, of course. 

London will supply endless strange-people-encounters for my videos, and you’ll always have reasons you’re a fail, wherever you are. And maybe that’s — the BBC knows when you find someone funny and quirky and somewhat famous, you give them a travel show. We’ll still have our London flat, with an even bigger breakfast bar and floor-to-ceiling one-way windows and a special cupboard just for ribena. But they’ll send us on adventures around the world, because who doesn’t want to see me manage to cut myself on a blunt katana and you discover various cultural consequences of inappropriate winking? I’ll show you around New York and get completely lost the minute we step off the grid. I think my penguin imitation alone will earn us an Antarctic special. At least when the cameras are off, we can keep each other warm.

Or forget the BBC, we can travel ourselves. We’ll have people wanting to see us all over the world — maybe not Antarctica. The penguins aren’t in our core demographic. But everywhere else, everywhere we want to go, we could, just to see our fans and give them a way to see us. In all our real live cringey glory. Lions, and llamas, and if they buy the VIP experience, maybe we’ll draw on their faces, so they too can be Tate-certified works of art. I’ll fall off the stage at least four times and you’ll offend someone’s mum with your language. We’ll be in a constantly shifting state of jetlag that defies the laws of spacetime: we’ll do shows on two continents at the same time.

It’ll be amazing. As long as it’s not on fire.

*

Unless we don’t go anywhere. 

We could stay in Manchester, in this very flat. In this very bed. Well, we’ll have to get up by 10:30, but still, here.

We could host parties for pigeons, who particularly enjoy the prison view. We’d film them for hours and the BBC doesn’t have to care, because our fans do. They do! Maybe not all of them, but some’d watch even if we didn’t give the pigeons personalities and a storyline. They’d probably watch if there weren’t even pigeons. But we can charge the pigeons for tickets, make them wear fancy dress, and birth a Halloween tradition. I can birth it, if you’d rather just hold my hand and cut the cord. And like, help me raise it for the next 18 years. Who knows what a pigeon party gets up to as a rebellious teen.

I could get a job at the Eye and bring you Shakeaway all the time. I’d memorize the commentary in every language and serenade you with Wheel facts in Japanese. And no matter what people say, what views we get, you could come by and watch me send people ‘round, or I’d get my Wheel friend... Pat, to cover me so we could go up together. Just to look out over our city, our troll bridge and our Starbucks and our never-predictable life. Once we get in the capsule, no one could prove it’s us and maybe… Maybe, we wouldn’t care. If it doesn’t go anywhere. If we decided not to go anywhere. If we’re happy that way, right where we are.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](http://templeofshame.tumblr.com/post/179459730625/if-none-of-this-goes-anywhere-rating-g-1k-let).


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